Rather discusses Guard story on Letterman

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Rather said that to his mind, two of the panel's most important conclusions were that it could not demonstrate that political bias played a part in the stories or conclusively account for the origins of the documents in question.

CBS's Sept. 8 story began falling apart when experts questioned the legitimacy of documents supposedly written by Bush's National Guard commander that suggested the future president had received preferential treatment.

"Although they had four months and millions of dollars, they could not demonstrate that the documents were not authentic, that they were forgeries," Rather said.

He declined to give his opinion of Moonves' decision to oust the four employees.

"It's behind us," Rather said. "We have to look forward at some point. You know, you've had ups and downs in your career, you've had criticisms. Sometimes you think it's justified, sometimes not. But at a certain point you have to say, the panel has spoken, the corporate leadership has spoken, this is how it is."

Letterman warmly thanked Rather for several years of guest appearances. "If it'll help," he said, "I'll step down."

Rather laughed. "You're a profit center, Dave, don't step down," he replied.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/11047174.htm

these had to be forgeries, because he knew the originals had been destroyed. Karen Hughes put them in a shredder.

The real tragedy though is that the secretary who said that the documents were not the ones she typed backed up the info that was in the documents.

If Bush had been a Dem, the whole story would have been different. It would have been that the info in the documents was true, no matter if the documents themselves were phonies.

Independent.

They did not have to be forgeries. They just could not authenticate them. I am sure they were real and the information they conveyed we know is real.

It's astounding the Rovian army is so fucking brazen as to try this incredibly smart ploy. It's even more astounding that it worked. But what is so supremely astounding is that the conventional wisdom has not yet formed around the obvious and true: that this was a Rove dirty trick from the very beginning.

If it was forged, it would be easy for top experts to spot it given that much time and money.

It's really just strategic to destroy the original but proffer the copy to maintain the aura of deception, just in case other documents showed up somewhere that matched.

Screw this moving on shite. Do not go gently Dan Rather!

F' them.

fakes and now Rather stands behind them? Has Rather really lost it?

I don't know if you saw the 60 minutes show or not but the great majority of the show was about proven aspects of Bush*'s history and the memos were there just for additional backup. They have not been proved to be fake and the information conveyed is proved accurate so any thinking person would assume they were indeed accurate.

what do thinking people assume?

This was discussed here extensively last fall. The conclusions reached were that (1) the font of the memos is not the same as any available in a current word processing program, (2) the letters and special symbols in the memos were entirely compatible with something like an IBM Executive proportion-space typewriter of the 60's, and (3) there were various small irregularities in the printing which confirmed that the originals must have been done on a typewriter and not on any sort of computer equipment.

As someone said above, the problem was that the memos CBS got were copies, not originals, and this made it impossible to verify their authenticity. But there is every reason to believe they were the real thing.

that rove was the one planting these "fake" memo's? If he has proof, why would rove "plant" the real thing?

Someone else may be more up on the details than I am, but there was an earlier incident where Rove apparently fed information about Bush's cocaine use to an author with dubious things in his background that could then be used to discredit his reporting. (Was that Hatfield's "Fortunate Son"?) The net result was that the entire Bush cocaine story could be painted as more or less urban legend.

So with the CBS memos, the idea is that the Rovian m.o. would be to let unverifiable copies out through a dubious channel, then instantly make claims of forgery against them, and thereby preemptively cast doubt on any future evidence that might come out of Bush being AWOL.

and network news isn't-- which explains why corporate ownership doesn't support the news division anywhere. That's their excuse, anyway.

And considering Putin's remarks to bush, I'll bet more Russians than Americans know the story behind the story -that the docs were never actually disproven.

A gave them to Rather, B gave them to A, C gave them to B, etc....you go back until you confirm where they originated, or someone refuses to talk. Either way, you have some answers. I don't get it.

Even if his corporate masters are Chimp flunkies...

I'm thinking of a Cy Hersh type report that delves into all the issues, like why the hell we still don't have some of the answeres and why the hell the fact that the military officer's secretary says these sentiments were genuine got buried.

Has there been such a report that we can all learn the genuine details of this ruse from?

Imo, it will wind up being one of the great political tricks in all of history--one that probably turned the election.

Just as the voting machines determined the GA elections of 02 (Diebold touchscreens) and other voting machines (ES&S scanners in MN e.g.) determined the results in other states. The voting machines will determine the outcome of the 06 elections, which will turn a number of other Dems out of office and seat some more Repubs who don't belong in Congress. Then, in 08, the machines will determine that the Repub candidate for president, whoever it is, won the election. There will be dirty tricks in that election too, but all these dirty tricks are just red herrings. If the votes had been counted fairly in 04, Kerry would have won by a wide margin. The dirty tricks had nothing to do with it. If the votes are counted fairly in 06, the Dem candidate will win no matter how many dirty tricks are played.

Even with voting machine fraud, Rathergate screwed the best shot at legitimately tarnishing bush's halo.

you cant see a black hole, but all facts lead to it.. so it depends on what you mean by proof, I've seen proof... I have no doubt in the fraud, the statistics show how and where the numbers were manipulated. Kerry won, despite the bush propaganda machine millions of people waited in lines, dodged republican poll thugs and did whatever they could to get this crook out of office. It was bushes hold on the vote counting that Kwerry couldnt stop... I think he should have fought.. he has his own plan i guess.. and I am reserving judgement to see what he does in the coming years, Kerry took time to expose Iran-Contra, he may be working on this in the same manner.

Regardlesss, I am working with www.left.org now to expose the theft of the election! I am not waiting for Kerry, and I suggest we all do the same.. dont wait to act.. the time is now! Everyone can do something!